Desperado quants go for gambling and defence

eFinancialCareers UK – Times are still not good for junior quants and mathematical PhDs who aspire to work in investment banks. With banks pulling back from complexity, there’s less need for their talents.

Mark Davis, a professor of maths at Imperial College, says lots of his students still want to work in finance, but they’re also being forced to contemplate defence, pharmaceutical work, and the consultancy branches of accountancy firms.

One recruiter says quants who can’t get into financial services are also to be found in “systematic gambling” at the likes of Betfair and Ladbrokes, where they analyze data in the same way hedge funds do.